As popular as the YouTube medium is for artists and creators alike, many people have speculated how lucrative of a business the video-sharing platform can be. While it's often been said that YouTube gives back the least amount of compensation to its talent, there's also been cases of success stories that have garnered high amounts of income for sharing their content with the world.
One of those cases appears to be a YouTuber named, John Hicks, who recently shared that he made $39,371 off of a single video that he made within an hour. He recalls being bored one day and deciding to film his surrounding neighborhood, only to find out that after a few weeks of poor results, the video went viral for reasons that aren't particularly clear. He does, however, reference his editing skills as a potential reason for the positive reception, though admitting that there's not much criteria in terms of what videos are successful in comparison to those that flop.
Within the segment, Hicks shares the analytics from his viral video, titled "Riding BMX in LB Compton Gang Zones 2 (BMX in the Hood)," while pointing out that "Watch Time" is more important than "Views." Overall, his video had accumulated 20,355 views over the last two months, with a watch time of 82,864,730 minutes. From there, he revealed that he earned close to $40K to date for a video of him riding a bike around his neighborhood.
Ultimately, Hicks pointed out that he's actually one of many successful YouTubers who make a decent living off the platform, while suggesting to post as many videos as you can as you never know which ones will go viral.
Source: YouTube
